Speaker 1: Have you ever made plans with a friend and they
say something like let's hang out this weekend, or maybe
someone told you just drop by any time, or you
hear people say let's catch up soon. These are all
very common phrasal verbs that we use all the time
when talking about social situations. Phrasal verbs are everywhere in
daily life. So for today's podcast English Lesson, we're going
to look at several very practical phrasal verbs that you
can use when talking about friends, plans, and everyday social life.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast coming to you from
New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast Episode one, thy fourteen
phrasal verbs for social situations. Let's start with the phrasal
verb hang out. Hang Out means to spend time with
someone in a relaxed, casual way. There's usually no big
plan or special activity. You're just spending time together. For example,
you might text a friend and say, hey, you want
to hang out this weekend. That just means you want
to spend time together, or like after work, some coworkers
might say, hey, let's hang out for a bit and
grab a beer, or maybe someone says, we just stayed
home and hung out all evening watching movies. So when
you hang out, you're spending time together in a casual,
relaxed way. In a similar way we use hang around,
but the feeling is a little different from hangout. Hang
around means to stay somewhere for a period of time,
often without doing anything special, like when you're waiting for something,
you know, killing time. Like imagine you finish work early,
but your friend is still busy, so you decide to
stay nearby. You might say, you know, I'll just hang
around here until you're done. In this case, you're not
really socializing, you're just staying in that place. And sometimes
hang around can have even a slightly negative feeling, like
if someone says, oh, there were a bunch of kids
hanging around outside the store, it can suggest they're just
standing there with nothing to do and maybe even causing trouble.
So here's the key difference. If you hang out, you're
spending time with someone in a relaxed and social way,
but if you hang around, you're just staying in a place.
Often waiting or with no clear purpose. Next, let's look
at show up. Show up means to arrive at a place,
especially when you're expected to be there. Like imagine you
invite some friends to your house for dinner at seven,
you might say everyone showed up right on time. Or
sometimes people use show up when someone is late, like oh,
he said he'd be here at six, but he didn't
show up until seven point thirty. Now here's another example.
If you plan a party and don't only a few
people come, you might say, yeah, not many people showed up.
So show up is all about arriving at a place,
especially for a plan or an event. Another common social
phrasal verb is drop by. Drop by means to visit
someone casually, usually without a plan or without staying for
a long time. For example, you might say to a friend, hey,
feel free to drop by anytime. That means they can
visit you casually. Here's another example, I dropped by my
friend's house on my way home just to say hello.
Or imagine you're at home and a friend suddenly rings
your doorbell. You might say, oh, I wasn't expecting you
to drop by. So drop by has the feeling of
a short casual visit. In a similar way, we also
use stop by. Stop By has the nuance of visiting
someone with a purpose, like I stop by Paul's house
the other day to pick up his old bicycle. So
drop by is more casual and stop by often has
a reason for the visit. Now, let's look at come
over and go over. Come over is similar to drop by,
but it usually suggests a planned visit, often to someone's home.
For example, you might say do you want to come
over for dinner tonight? Or a few friends are coming
over to watch the game. Here's another example, Hey, why
don't you come over this weekend? We can cook something together.
So when someone comes over, they visit your home, usually
with a plan, and when you go over, you visit
another person's home, like tomorrow, I'm going over to Ed's
house with my guitar to play some music. So the
difference is simple. People come over to your place and
you go over to theirs. And finally, let's look at
catch up. Catch up means to talk with someone and
share news after you haven't seen or spoken to each
other for some time. For example, imagine you meet an
old friend after a long time. You might say, ah,
it was great catching up with her. Or maybe you
text a friend and say hey, let's catch up soon.
That means you want to meet and talk about what's
been happening in your lives recently. Here's another example. We
met for coffee and spent two hours catching up. So
catch up is all about reconnecting and sharing updates. So
let's recap today. We looked at several phrasal verbs that
are common in social situations. If you hang out, you
spend time together in a relaxed way. If you hang around,
you stay somewhere, often waiting or without a clear purpose.
If you show up, you arrive somewhere, especially with a plan.
And when you drop by, you visit someone casually and briefly,
and stop by, well, that's usually a short visit with
a purpose. When someone comes over, they visit your home,
and when you go over, you visit someone else's home.
And finally, when you catch up, you talk about well,
you know, your recent news after some time apart. So
here's your challenge this week. Try using one of these
phrasal verbs in a real conversation. Maybe you can invite
a friend to hang out, or tell someone to drop by,
or say hey, let's catch up soon. These are the
kinds of expressions that native speakers use every day, and
the more you use them, the more natural your English
will sound. And keep in mind the best way to
remember English like this and any other word or phrase
in English, is to take that word or phrase, write
it in a sentence that's true for you or true
in your world. Then memorize your sentences. Hey, thanks for listening,
and remember, learning another language is not easy, but it's
not impossible, and I'm here to help you on your journey.
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